The Dog Doesn’t Do Sarcasm by Charles Christian

The dog is doing his little dance. The little dance he always does whenever he wants more biscuits. He has a limited repertoire. He’s never been to dog training and we were too poor to send him to stage school.

As if, I say, I’m giving you any more biscuits when you’ve just turned up your nose at your dinner. A dinner of well-balanced tasty morsels that a team of canine nutritionists spent the best years of their lives perfecting. You, the same picky pooch who, given half a chance will happily snarf down six-month old roadkill.

Then I realise I’m being sarcastic – to a dog. My dog doesn’t understand English. Even if he could, he’s old and deaf now.

I begin to feel guilty, like maybe I’ve hurt his feelings. So I give him some more biscuits and explain that… I wasn’t laughing at him but with him.

My dog doesn’t do sarcasm but he appreciates irony.

(previously published in Not Expecting Fish anthology, Gatehouse Press, 2007)

Charles Christian is a former barrister and Reuters correspondent who now writes about tech, geek stuff, folklore, pop culture, medieval history, the just plain weird, and anything else he thinks you’ll enjoy.

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